After rehab, a high-profile marriage, more rehab, hookers, porn stars, crack hags who just give it away, a high-profile divorce followed by a quick high-profile marriage, little more rehab, and yes, another divorce, 5 soon-to-be-fucked-up children, and a truly horrible sit-com, Charlie Sheen has come clean on his hard partying ways — he is addicted to a drug called Charlie Sheen.

(For years, I thought he was addicted to riding the coattails of a famous Hollywood name into a financially successful, though ultimately, lackluster career.)

But I must confess. I too have partaken of the Sheen. For a brief time during the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, I took a few thousand hits of Charlie Sheen (Not to be confused with taking hits from Charlie Sheen, which is really more of a prostitute/ex-wife kind of thing.)

It started in 1983 with a little film called “The Outsiders”. I told myself I should be open to new experiences and it would be fun. After all, I was young. So, I took a hit and saw immediate results and it opened my mind. It suddenly seemed plausible that a then 31-year-old Patrick Swayze could play a high school age kid (which he repeated in “Red Dawn” a year later). Tom Cruise seemed like he could hold his own in a knife fight. Ralph Macchio appeared talented.

It was a mind-altering experience and I knew I needed more. But I kept it under control, just small Sheen fueled binges. Like bit parts in “Ferris Beuller’s Day Off” and “Amazing Stories”. But then came “Platoon” and it all became a haze. Like the fog of war, I became lost in the fog of Charlie Sheen. One day I had friends, a family, a promising career. The next thing I knew I was mainlining Sheen into my neck meat trying to figure out why brothers Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez have different last names, which one was married to Paula Abdul, and what kind of cruel universe would allow them to co-star in “Men at Work”.

It was a dark time in my life. “Navy Seals”, “Cadence”, any excuse to put Charlie in a military uniform, cop uniform, or baseball cap. I actually sucked Corbin Bernsen’s dick just for a taste of “Major League II”.

I had hit rock bottom. I had become a Charlie Sheen head.

Don’t get me wrong. They weren’t all bad times. There was “Being John Malkovich” and “Spin City” and “Wall Street”. Good, solid highs. But there were also the memories I now turn to meth for to erase (as in “The Chase”). Some of the memories are simply too painful to recall.

But then came a morning after watching a “Two and a Half Men” marathon, strung out, naked, the remote control way over on the coffee table just out of the reach of my foot. I had hit bottom. I had lost all sense of reality, dignity, and respect for the art of television and movie making. And there I sat, alone in front of the TV, covered in Corbin Bernsen’s stink, and I knew it was time for a change.

So, today I’m 42 days clean. And while I have rebuilt some semblance of a life, it’s certainly not complete. The damage has been done. But I take it one day at a time.

And now I find out that Charlie Sheen, too, is addicted to the drug Charlie Sheen. So, my advice to Charlie is: The first step is to admit you have a problem. The second step is to learn to love yourself. The third step is to build a well-armed bunker to fend off the inevitable army of douche bags who want you to make “Mighty Ducks 4″… Oh, wait. That was the other… Never mind. Just move full-time to your Bahamian porn pleasure dome and coke away until your heart blows. That’s probably best for all concerned.

In the wake of the recent wave of Somali pirate activity and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s assault on public employee unions, we wonder: Is it better to be a Somali pirate or a Wisconsin school teacher?

So, President Obama — shortly after approving tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans — has proposed cutting $5.1 billion from a home heating assistance program for the poor that will likely leave hundreds of thousands of Americans without heat, left to freeze next winter. Now, you’re probably asking yourself, “What took him so long?” Well, change takes time, and this is change you can believe in. The change in this instance is, however, that of bodily fluids that turn from a liquid to a solid state as the bitter cold coagulates the blood of the indigent into cherry Slurpee. But why stop there when there are so many horribly merciless — and profitable — degradations yet to be done to the poor?

Here are some suggestions that might just save our economy while simultaneously gouging the poverty-stricken:

Use handicapped as human billboards. Have a new product or service to promote? Strap a sign to a wheelchair bound man or a blind woman’s cane. You may see them as handicapped but I see them as handi-capitalists.

Rent underprivileged single mothers to China. They have a generation comprised almost entirely of men; we have loads of illiterate ladies who don’t know the meaning of the words 爆菊花. It’s win-win!

Race the homeless in street derbies. It’s fun for the whole family, and hobo fuel is an untapped energy source that could power the green economy of tomorrow.

Pit diabetic elderly against each other in “Amazing Race” … for insulin. Entertaining, educational, and you never know where the chase will lead: Sometimes to an exotic foreign city, other times to a Wal-Mart bathroom floor, licking gum off a toilet seat in a hypoglycemic stupor.

Bottle the tears of orphans. This saline fluid is loaded with minerals and a great alternative to sugary soft drinks that don’t involve child sadness.

With a little creative thinking, we just might pull ourselves out of this economic tailspin or at least thin the ranks of the needy who lack the necessary skills to elicit empathy in our blackened, dead hearts.

If history has taught us anything, it’s that guns don’t kill — people do. Angry people. People who feel they’ve been wronged, misunderstood, or robbed of love and/or riches. People who hold grudges and own the movie “Red Dawn”. People who work in IT departments or are engineering students, are socially awkward and under appreciated, yet surprisingly nimble at scaling water towers. People determined to keep the British infantry out of their homes, and their homes mobile. People with a poor grasp of historical events and the general principal of cause and effect relationships — you know, like George Washington and the cherry tree, and how he chopped it down and freed the slaves. People who own holsters and otherwise would have nothing to wear with them. People who attend political rallies for politicians they wouldn’t vote for. People who enjoy having little friends in their pockets that urge them to be irrational, like a 1920s-era sidekick. “Go ahead boss, moyder him good! That’ll learn him!” People who have neither escaped from the “Planet of the Apes” nor from rumors of being gay. People who love America and firmly believe in the 2nd Amendment, but no so much in the 1st, 6th, 14th, 15th, 16th, and 19th. People who wouldn’t get so upset if Jodie Foster would just return their damn phone calls! People who are willing to water the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots and tyrants, and those who don’t understand the meaning of the word “duck”. Indeed, guns don’t kill, people do — people who own guns.

While the economy may still be in the tank, there are lucrative career opportunities out there for those with the necessary skills to work with celebrities.

Now Hiring:

Personal Zoologist for Khloe KardashianDuties: Study and document the large mammal in its natural habitat: Eating buckets of chicken in the dressing room of Lane BryantPros: Free access to extensive family library of sex tapes.Cons: Most scientists in the field eventually lose appendage in unprovoked attack over peanut brittle.

Parole Officer for Lindsay LohanDuties: Monitor the erratic starlet and prevent her from drinking, drugging, or making a sequel to “Herbie Fully Loaded”.Pros: Oftentimes, work is conducted in the lush surroundings of a Malibu rehab facility.Cons: Jewelry, clothing, and pacemakers often go “missing”.

Paranormal Researcher for Michele BachmannDuties: Investigate the supernatural entity that has possession of the Minnesota congresswoman’s grasp on reality.Pros: Will have ample opportunity to enjoy the outdoors while digging up Indian burial sites and the grave of Ronald Reagan in search of “National Treasure”-style clues to President Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate.Cons: Ectoplasmic swirl of conspiracy theories may suck you into a fourth dimension between the living and the politically dead. Tip: When you hear your name, either walk toward or away from the light.

Wait a second. Football isn’t interesting. It’s barely even a game. One team with a ball runs to the furthest point on the field while being trailed by the other, and then they trade turns. That’s pretty much how I play with my cat. At least boxing is a match between two men who test each other’s physical and mental limits, not to mention their unthinkably high thresholds for pain. Football uses so many pads it’s like sorority row at the University of Alabama. And the scariest thing on the field is most likely to be one of Bret Farve’s texts.

And for the fans, how dull must your ordinary life be that football suffices as an adventurous escape? Where must you work, in a thorazine factory? How could you possibly enjoy having your Sundays completely consumed for months with the repetitive, monotonous, corporate-fueled rumba of steroid-swelled ogres chasing a ball that, given its shape, isn’t even rolling away? If you really want to make it a game, replace the ball with something like a toaster or, better yet, an iPad. At least then the product placements wouldn’t be so distracting like the superimposed images they project over the field. The last game I saw I wasn’t sure if I was watching football or reading a script from “Gossip Girl”.

Of course, admittedly, this is the minority viewpoint.

There are many who clearly enjoy weekends spent in a beer and Cheeto-filed haze, floating past visions of lost youth, and triumphs that never were — past a professional football career, past the band that was so much better than anything you’d hear on the radio today, past the seemingly foolproof small business idea of selling crack to school children. So many could-have-beens. So many failures. So many lost dreams. You know, the ones that would have certainly come true if she hadn’t entered your life with all of her questions like, “Are you listening to me?” and “Why won’t you listen to me?” and “Why are you wearing my bra?”

I’m referring, of course, to wife beaters, because what is Super Bowl Sunday if not a wife beater’s Christmas? It’s a day marked by more cases of domestic violence than any other. I suppose, it’s that one special day where the sports fan can justifiably be filled with rage if his team loses, and even more furious if, indeed, they win. And it’s all part of the celebration. For the guys it’s like cheering on Santa as he whips the reindeer leading his joyful sleigh. And for the ladies, well, it’s like being whipped by a crazy man whose first audible words since the World Series are, “Now I suppose you’re going to hold this against me, too.”

Yes, it’s a time of rejoicing, remembrance, tears, and shame, the kind that can only come from spending 5 hours with a cheese-shaped piece of foam molded to your sweaty little head. And the greatest gift of all is, of course, the one that doesn’t leave behind marks or photographic evidence.